A World After its Own Image
“The most intimate reactions of human beings have been so thoroughly reified that the idea of anything specific to themselves now persists only as an utterly abstract notion: personality scarcely signifies anything more than shining white teeth and freedom from body odor and emotions. The triumph of advertising in the culture industry is that consumers feel compelled to buy and use its products even though they see through them.”—Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception,” (1944).
This passage from Adorno and Horkheimer’s classic essay speaks to the wonders of capitalism: the ability of the system to get people to attach social meaning and influence to consumption. Our identity is so interwoven with what we buy, that our modern global society has created hierarchies where people are measured by what they consume. A truth rings in the saying, “The suit makes the man” that does ..read more
